


You Are a Strider

by jayilyse



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Gen, Minor Violence, Nostalgia, Sadstuck, if you count against machines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayilyse/pseuds/jayilyse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This will never happen again. It will be a cold day in Hell when you let it. In fact, Hell will have to have a nuclear winter before this happens again. You are a Strider. The only fucking one left. Start acting like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are a Strider

**Author's Note:**

> There isn't really graphic violence in here, but there is some. You have been warned.

It’s a normal day for you – just you and your Bro, strifing on the roof. The sun beats down on you – wave after wave of sweat trying to leak out of your every pore. Bro isn’t even breaking a sweat at all. He flash-steps out of your way, time after time. You get desperate – for once in your life you just want to beat him. To show him you’re his equal. You take your shitty sword and lunge at him. Suddenly everything stops – even Bro. Yet you haven’t stopped. Gravity is still taking you down and Bro can’t move. He’s stock still, probably looking at you from behind his shades with frozen eyes. You scream at him. You scream at him to move – to flash-step – to get out of the way. But it’s already too late. Your sword pierces his midsection and the world – your world – is stained a dark, rusty smelling, red.

You wake with a start.

You, Dave Strider, must have fallen asleep.

This is the exact reason why you don’t try to sleep anymore. The cold sweat is dripping down your bare back as you stare at the metallic ceiling from your bed. For a while you don’t move. You don’t want to move even a single inch. However, after a while, your muscles ache to stretch. Your bones crave movement. You take your time sitting up, your pants bunching upward a bit, as you reach for the shades on the bedside table.

You put them on, forgetting that it would have been wiser to put your God Tier hood on first. You silently curse. Whatever. You’re too lazy to put it on now. You’d rather just stay in your room. You glance across the mostly empty expanse that you call your “room” – toward the desk at the other side of it. It has your DJ headgear and your old DJ setup on it. It’s been a while since you made some sick beats. It’s rare that you even come in here.

You decide that it’s time to drop the bass like it’s hot. Today is the day you finally finish a track – something you haven’t done since you came on this meteor. Swinging your legs off the bed, you place your feet on the icy, hard floor. You push yourself off the bed, although it groans in protest.

You’ve grown. You had a huge growth spurt in the last couple of months, and the growth seemed to take place in your legs, mostly. A walk to the other side of the room used to take more than a few paces. That’s no longer true. One or three steps and you’re already there.

The DJ board seems so foreign now. Of course you remember what button does this or that; it just seems so…alien. The cool kind – like Terezi. Not like Karkat – yeah, no, fuck him. You don’t hate him or anything – not romantically or platonically. He can be really annoying, though. No – no more thoughts about Karkat. It’s just you and the ill track you’re about to make, as well as the headphones on your ears. You start up the system and mess with some random sounds until something sounds ironic enough to be cool. You click more buttons and unclick them. You flip switches and flip them back. You always wind up at the original mix you started with today. It sounds so oddly familiar. You stare at the switch board as if it’ll give you an answer.  
And it does.

This was the first mix you ever used. You were pretty young at the time – maybe in elementary school. You were so proud that you showed it to Bro. You dragged him to your room – or more like he let you think you were dragging him – and you got behind the setup. It was on a tiny table to match your height. Flipping the switches and pushing a button, you beamed at him – adding in a record spin for flair. He listened to your inane babbling about how you found the beat. He gave one of his trade mark smirks and ruffled your hair.

“Good job, little man.”

Later that day was the first time he taught you how to strife.

The day after, he gave you your first pair of “big boy” shades.

You nod your head up and down to the beat, sliding up that thingamabob you never remember the name of. You turn a knob and it gets louder – all you can hear is the bass thump in your ear.

Your brain starts to wander back to Bro. It leads you to the last time he hugged you. It was your first day of middle school. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching TV, when you walked out of your room and grabbed your bag. Slinging it around your shoulder, you headed towards the door, offering a simple “Later, Bro.” You were about to turn the handle of the door when he called out to you.

“Dave.”

You turned around with a raised eyebrow. It was rare for him to say your name.

“Sup?”

Then he was standing. He flash-stepped and all of a sudden his arms were around you, and the side of your face was pressed against his midriff. You weren’t sure what to do. You let your arms hang limply at your sides.

“Don’t grow up too fast, Dave.”

And just like that, as quickly as it had started it had ended, he flash-stepped out of the room.

You wish you hugged him back.

You wonder what would’ve happened if you did.

You indulge the fantasy, and allow yourself to imagine it.

You lift your arms this time and hold Bro close. It’s warm. A gentle embrace that contrasts so starkly against the usual strifing you two engage in. It’s…nice. You ponder responding to what he said when you feel something on your face. It’s sticky and smells like dried rust. You take the side of your face off of him, putting your hand to the part of your face that was just on Bro. When you bring it back down, your hand is stained dark red. Wide eyed with horror, you look back at Bro. Now there’s a gigantic, gaping hole and massive amounts of blood gushing where your face was plastered against him. You look up at his face and he just smirks at you.

“Later, Dave.”

You start screaming again – you feel like your lungs are going to burst with the force of it – just screaming “no, no, no” over and over, banging your fists against him and telling him not to go – yelling and screeching for him to stay. Bro only smirks down at you.

Then he’s gone. You’re back in your room in the meteor. The beat stopped. Your throat is scratchy and your fists have a dull ache to them. Looking down, you see a smashed setup, as well as bleeding fists. Tear stains run down your cheeks, but the tears have long since left your face.

Fuck.

Did you forget what Bro taught you already? His lessons on the ironic art of the poker face? How he taught you what it means to be a Strider? You remember his words almost exactly. You don’t even remember what caused him to say this, yet you took the words to heart. He patted the seat next to him on the couch, and you gladly popped a squat next to him.  
“Listen, little man – you are a Strider. Do you know what it means to be a Strider?”

You shook your head.

“Well then – listen up, ‘cause I’m only telling you once. Got me?”

This time you nodded.

“Good. To be a Strider is to be a mountain. A Strider listens and adapts to everything nature throws at him. It could be an earthquake, hail, cyclones – it doesn’t matter. The mountain is always there. The mountain is not like the ocean, which is controlled by the moon and affected by the tide. The mountain controls itself. People can try and hurt the mountain, farm it and make it try to adapt to them instead of them adapting to you, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t let them get the best of you. You are a mountain. You are strong. You keep your cool, and never let anything get to you. You are a Strider. Don’t forget it.”  
The words ring in your ears as if they bounced off these cold walls. The unforgiving echo eventually fades out.

You lost your cool.

This will never happen again. It will be a cold day in Hell when you let it. In fact, Hell will have to have a nuclear winter before this happens again. You are a Strider. The only fucking one left. Start acting like it.

You take off your headphones and assess the damage that you dispensed to the turntables. It seems like the spinner is broken. A lot of switches broke off. Some buttons are smashed into the board and stuck in that position. The sliding thing is jammed. No wonder your hands are bloody, this shit’s a wreck. Whatever. You’ll fix it later. Turning, you grab your God Tier hood off the floor and force it over your head, setting your shades askew as you do so. You adjust them when the hood is over your head. You head to the door, open it and step into the hallway, then shut it with a satisfying slam. Not too loud, not too quiet – perfectly ironic. You amble your way down the corridor – this is more like it. This is you, Dave – Dave motherfucking Strider. You won’t forget it. Not now, not ever.

You just won’t sleep again.

Not for a very long time.


End file.
